CHEN

Writer's Memo
toc When looking for research resources, I read Orwell’s //1984//, Zamyatin’s //We//, and Postman’s //Amusing Ourselves To Death//. These books helped me in thinking about the root of happiness and, most importantly, the connection between Brave New World and the world we are currently living in. And I think this is also what Huxley wanted readers to think about. I felt happy when I really desired something and worked hard to achieve my goals. Therefore I chose to talk about Belief. I have always considered dreams to be the most important thing to a person. I wanted to construct a strong argument that can convince people, based on my own analysis of Brave New World.

Wikispaces is an interesting website and I think it did help me thinking, especially when choosing appropriate pictures and videos to post. And the best experience with Wikispaces was that I loved the website design.

**7th Draft --Final Draft**

Danyi Chen Professor Carleton ENG103 December 6, 2010 Portfolio 3

Believe Your Beliefs // Even with these dark eyes, a gift of the dark night // // I go to seek the shining light. // ——Gu Cheng, //A Generation// (Gu, 3)

Above is one of the most notable Chinese poems in the Post-Mao era (1978~1990), when everyone in mainland China had to face a radical social change and an unpredictable future. “Dark night” refers to the 10-year Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966~1976) that resulted in destruction of antiques, historical relics, ancient Chinese philosophies, and literature. However, after the death of Mao in 1976, scholars realized this terrible mistake made in Culture Revolution and encouraged people to study ancient Chinese traditions again. Gu Cheng’s generation (born in 1960s) learned to criticize all “old things ” in school, but after graduated they were told to take responsibilities to inherit and protect them. “Dark eyes” refers to both dark color in Chinese’s eyes and confusing eyes which were once blocked in the darkness and then started looking for brightness. Gu Cheng’s description in //A Generation// showed how eager the young generation seeks for a belief to follow with.

According to Oxford English Dictionary, belief stands for: “trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.” When one thinks of doing something, the first step is to focus on a goal, or a direction. The direction must be convincing, clear, and confidential so that mistakes will be avoided. The same is true for a team or a country. If beliefs are destroyed, people will lose directions and therefore, get their country in trouble.

Similar to what happened after the Culture Revolution in China, in 1990s, a perestroika that took place in Soviet Union negated the communist belief which has been generally accepted for a half century. Katya, a sixteen-year-old Russian girl commented that "the ideals my parents and grandparents grew up with are collapsing " (Adelman, 235). People were unable to tell if what was wrong became right and whether what was right remained right. As Adelman analyzed:

"In their often ambivalent attitudes about work, military service, religion, higher education, and lifestyle choices, these people reveal a generation still caught between the old and the new, a generation not yet ready to abandon totally the values and attitudes that are part of the Soviet legacy, yet also not ready or sure how to incorporate themselves fully into a new way of life." (Adelman, xii)

Lack of beliefs leads to lack of hopes. In the following years, a belief vacuum pushed Russia into a crisis of a terrible economic retrogression that took a long time to recover:

_"From 1992 to 2000, Russia 's average annual rate of inflation was 38 percent. Russia 's agricultural sector remained beset by un-certainty over land ownership rights, which discouraged needed investment and restructuring. The industrial base was increasingly dilapidated and needed to be replaced or modernized if the country was to achieve sustainable economic growth." (Gregory, online)

Fortunately, after decades of exploration, China found patriotism as a new faith while Russia promoted a combination of patriotism and religion. They seemed to be on a right track for development. However, recently another crisis is coming that both new and old faiths in the world are invaded by consumerism and material greed. Nowadays, people have gotten used to depend on technologies, consumption of mass-produced goods, precise time management, enthusiasm for entertainments and even drugs. Millions of distracting trivial things are taken seriously. Intangible things including beliefs, faiths, and dreams are unavoidably forgotten. These coincidentally match with the conditions in Aldous Huxley’s fiction //Brave New World//.

In //Brave New World//, there is a single country named “the World State ” in which technology is extensively applied. The controllers reform the world to maintain their motto: "COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, AND STABILITY .” (Huxley, 18) They cut the root of unhappiness by eliminating poverty, hunger, and disease. They let bio-techniques replace natural reproduction to stabilize population and so people can enjoy recreational sex. Families and parenthood are considered shameful because “every one belongs to every one else.” (Huxley, 48) People’s social strata are predetermined so there is no competition nor complain t s. Moreover, there is no need to read books, confess sins, or appreciate arts, since everyone is busy playing social games such as Obstacle Golf and Centrifugal Bumble-puppy and watching “feelies” in order to get sensory stimulation. And what most wonderful is a pleasure drug called “soma” that is provided free and perpetually. As Huxley explained in // Brave New World Revisited, An Essay: //

_"In small doses the Soma of the Brave New Worlders was a relaxant, an inducer of euphoria, a fosterer of friendliness and social solidarity. In medium doses it transfigured the external world and acted as a mild hallucinant; and in large doses it was a narcotic." (Huxley, Online)

Thus, all desires are fulfilled. Just as what they have learned and fully convinced from sleep teaching: “Everybody's happy now.” (Huxley, 120) The world is stable and everyone is joyful, isn’t it a perfect utopia?

No, it’s not. John the savage, a man comes from another culture tries to wake them up by yelling NOs. John finds out that in the World State there is only passive happiness. Without motivations to pursue real happiness, people would not find goals or beliefs.

Unlike his peers, John grew up in an Indian tribe in which primitive traditions and religions are conserved. The mixture of culture motivates him tend to think and question. When other kids looked at tubes and bottles in the lab and cheered: “Science is everything!” (Huxley, 203) John listened to “strange stories from old men of the pueblo” (Huxley, 120) and explored the big nature. In addition, after read ing Shakespeare’s works, John partly imagined himself as a character in the stories of revenge and love. He longs for having a life resembles fiction characters’. That is how he becomes rational, religious, and natural. He has experienced all emotions in the youth; therefore, he cherished a real happiness. Consequently, he goes mad after finds out that the fake happiness has formed the whole world **maggoty with wholesale mind-manipulated ideologies**. Huxley writes "’what you need,’ the Savage went on, ‘is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here.’" The reason he wants “the right to be unhappy” is as what Agent Smith explained to Morpheus in the movie The Matrix:

_"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. "(Wachowski)

However, no one would like to wake up from their passive happiness. John is too weak to follow his dreams. In the end of the story, John is compelled to hang himself:

_"Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east. "(Huxley, 231)

Even after he dies, John still cannot decide a direction. That is the solution he works out for this “brave new function” –no solution: beliefs are destroyed and the world is dying. People reading his amazing story from headlines would never understand what Mr. Savage thinks. They don’t have reasons to think about him. The next day, alphas, betas, and epsilons will buy new newspaper and continue their happy life with soma, until their bodies are thrown into the big chimneys, became a “marvelous switchback ”, and finally disappear in the sky. And the controllers, who hide books forever in the locker, will be glad to rule his country of two billion zombies forever.

Huxley’s //Brave New World// is considered one of the most famous dystopian novels in English literature. Together with a nation called “the Oceania” from another dystopian work –George Orwell’s //1984//, the World State in //Brave New World// is often compared with reality. In //1984//, people are monitored by the “big brother” (world’s controller) who wants to manipulate every citizen, "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. ”(Orwell, 62) A threat of a mind-control society has expired in most countries due to the democracy development. On the contrary, Huxley’s prophecies in //Brave New World// have come true one by one: Transatlantic flights, contraception measures, LSD, tube babies, accurate time management, and even 3D movies –a technology that is mostly used in action movies. This world is in danger, as what Neil Postman warned in his book //Amusing Ourselves To Death//:

_"Marked in //Brave New World Revisited//, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.' In //1984//, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In //Brave New World//, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." (Postman, 5)

**“What we love” is how technologies __improve life quality.__** People are satisfied to have free and easy access to various pieces of information by media such as televisions, cell phones, and computers. Dating back 200 hundred years, people only got information to solve problems in their lives. Information was directly related to actions. Nowadays, people get massive, unnecessary, and trivial information, which is separated from their actions and serves for sensory stimulation. Postman argues:

_“Our politics, religion ,news, athletics,education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death." (Postman, 4)

The biggest problem with entertainment is: people think they are happy instead of having the actual happiness. Have received so much superfluous information, some people get the conclusion “hmm, there are so many things going on and I am so small” which leads to a feeling of emptiness inside; therefore, they push themselves into more entertainment hoping to eliminate loneliness. When things continue going this way, people involuntarily accept the set of the society, therefore easily get satisfied. This is another reason why one stops desiring and thinking. Just like how people end up with in the World State in novel //Brave New World//. In //1984//, the controller asked people to be happy, and therefore sadness was forbidden; in //Brave New World//, the controller asked people to be happy, and therefore sadness was forgotten. If the way people lived in //1984// is described as having their heads buried in the sands because they could not escape or breathe, then the way people lived in the World State in Brave New Worldis like a frog in boiling water, because they do not even notice how they are dying. In the situation Russians experienced in early 1990s, their beliefs were abruptly destroyed; in //1984//, their beliefs are compelled to unify; **however, the most terrible outcome is what happens in //Brave New World// and the contemporary world: beliefs are gradually melted in amusements.** Such as the World State controller’s explanation to why people give up religious beliefs:

_“'The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses .' But there aren't any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have soma? of something immovable, when there is the social order?" (Huxley, 210)

Include religions, everything intangible is no longer demanded when people amuse themselves to death. However, although Postman showed his anger and worry about the entertained world, he still believed that “new technology can never substitute for human values”. (Public Broadcasting Service) Life is like sailing, one would easily get lost on the sea without a direction. It gives out power and hope.

When Columbus set to sail from the west end of Eurasia, he had nothing but the belief that he would successfully explore a new route to another continent. And he did. As he noted in the diario of his first voyage to America:

_”And the sea will grant each man new hope... his sleep brings dreams of home." (Columbus, 420)

[Word Count: 2109]

**7th Draft --Works Cited**

Adelman, Deborah. //The "Children of Perestroika": Young people of// Moscow //talk about life in the new// Russia//﻿////.// M.E. Sharpe, 1992. Adelman, Deborah.//The "Children of Perestroika": Moscow Teenagers talk about their lives and the future.// M. E. Sharpe, 1992. Columbus, Christopher. //The Diario of Christopher Columbus's first voyage to// America//, 1492-1493.// Trans. Dunn, Oliver and Kelley, James. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989, Print; Gregory, R. Paul. //Post-Soviet Economy//. (online) ([]) 12/6/10; Gu, Cheng. //Sea of dreams: the selected writings of Gu Cheng.// Trans. Joseph Roe Allen. New Directions Publishing, 2005. Print; Huxley, Aldous. //Brave New World: and, Brave New World Revisited.// Harper Collins, 2004. Print; Huxley, Aldous. //Brave New World Revisited, An Essay.// (Online)([]) 12/6/10; Orwell, George. //1984.// Dramatic Publishing Co., 1963. Print; Oxford Dictionaries (online) ([]) 12/6/10; Postman, Neil. //Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business.// Penguin Books, 1985. Print; Public broadcasting service (Online) //Neil Postman Ponders High Tech//, 1/17/1996. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/january96/postman_1-17.html) 12/6/10; Wachowski, Andy and Wachowski, Larry. Matrix. Warner Bros and Australian Village Roadshow Pictures. 1999. Print.

7th Draft --Annotated Bibliography
toc // Excellent source with strong and narrow analysis on contemporary society and comparisons between // // George Orwell’s 1984 and Adouls Huxley’s Brave New World. 184 pages. //
 * Postman, Neil. __Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business.__ **
 * Penguin Books, 1985. 1-184. Print. **

This book was published when Television made increasingly significant influences on every aspect of people’s life, such as politics, religion, news, education, commerce and etc. Neil Postman believes that Television is a medium that transmits oversimplified information, and it redefines everything in terms of entertainment. He argues that there are two ways that human values are undermined: one way is to block everything like the way “the Big Brother” did in George Orwell’s novel 1984. Another way is to allow people to get addicted to infotainments and to stop them from thinking independently, just like what happens in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. His points of views support my thesis that entertainmentdistracts people from focusing and therefore beliefs are forgotten.

// Very good source with detailed descriptions and in-depth thinking about a mind-control society. 83 pages. //
 * O rwell, George. __1984.__ **
 * Dramatic Publishing Co., 1963. 1-83. Print. **

In George Orwell’s novel, people live in a collectivistic society where government surveillances are used pervasively. Humanity is strictly controlled so that people are afraid of thinking and questioning. It seems like the world in 1984 is opposite to the “World State” in Huxley’s Brave New World, because the latter descript a society where people are relaxing and happy. However both of them are dystopian novels that negate oligarchical politics and monopolistic belief. 1984 provide a great ideology to be compared with.

// Very useful examples for study of the feelings of youth who are looking for a sense of belonging in a big society // // movement. 256 pages. //
 * Adelman, Deborah. __The "Children of Perestroika": Young people of Moscow talk about life in the new Russia.__ **
 * M.E. Sharpe, 1992. 1-15, 172-183. Print. **

In this book Adelman interviewed eleven youth whose age arranged from sixteen to eighteen. They have different backgrounds and ethnicities, however all were involved in periods of radical changes. They were aware of some social phenomenon through what they learned and experienced in schools and families, but they could not tell the reasons or long term influences. In the interview all of them expressed their desire to have a psychological settlement. Not like their parents or grandparent who grew up in a clear ideal,these youths have to choose a belief for themselves, which is hard.

toc Belief

//Dark// //(Black)// //night gives me// //black// eyes, with which I am seeking brightness --Gu Cheng, //A Generation// (an interesting quote but may need brief discussion of its specific meaning as it relates to your focus)

_Above is one of the most notable Chinese poems in Post-Mao era (1978~1990) in China, where everyone had to face a shift of society structure and an unpredictable future. Gu Cheng’s description in //A Generation// showed how eager the young generation seeks for something to replace their parents’ communist beliefs.

_Similarly, a few years later, the perestroika that took place in Soviet Union negated a communist belief which has been generally accepted for a half century. “.”Katya, a sixteen-year-old Russian girl commented on her feeling. (Adelman, pg235) People were unable to tell what was wrong became right and whether what was right remained right .As Adelman analyzed: In their often ambivalent attitudes about work, military service, religion, higher education, and lifestyle choices, these people reveal a generation still caught between the old and the new, a generation not yet ready to abandon totally the values and attitudes that are part of the Soviet legacy, yet also not ready or sure how to incorporate themselves fully into a new way of life. (Adelman, xii)

_No beliefs gave out no hopes. (clarify: do you mean that lack of belief leads to lack of hope?) In the following years, a belief vacuum pushed Russia into a crisis of a terrible economic retrogression. (http://www.answers.com/topic/post-soviet-economy)

_Fortunately, after decades of exploration, China’s patriotism and Russia’s combination of patriotism and religion help them to go on a right track of development. However, recently another crisis is coming that all beliefs and faiths in the world are invaded by people’s massive enjoyments of material things.

_Nowadays, people live with and get use to technologies, consumption of mass-produced goods, precise time management, enthusiasm for entertainments and even drugs. Beliefs, faiths, dreams are forgotten. (briefly note how/why belief, faith and dreams are important? why does it matter if they are forgotten?) All features coincidently fit in Adouls Huxley’s fiction //Brave New World//.

_In a country named “the World State” in //Brave New World//, technology worship is extensively applied. The controller reform the world to keep their motto: “COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, AND STABILITY.” (BNW Ch.1) They cut the root of unhappiness by eliminating poverty, hunger, and disease. They let bio-techniques replace natural reproduction so people can enjoy recreational sex. Families and parenthood are considered shameful because “everyone belongs to everyone else.” There is no need to read books or appreciate arts, since the controllers design sports such as Obstacle Golf and Centrifugal Bumble-puppy to make people busy, publish “feelies” to give them sensory stimulation. And what is most wonderful, a pleasure drug called “soma” will comfort people whenever they do not feel well. Thus, every desire is fulfilled, except love, which becomes an appendix. People’s social strata are predetermined so there is no competition neither complains. Just as what they learned and fully convinced from sleep teaching: “everyone is happy now. (BNW Ch.5) The world is stable and everyone is joyful, isn’t it a perfect utopia?

_No, it’s not. John the savage, a man comes from another culture, tries to wake them up by yelling NOs. Because people live in the Brave New World are slaves who don’t have beliefs. The passive happiness gives them neither hopes nor futures.

_John grew up in an Indian tribe in which primitive traditions and religions are conserved.  (reflect: did John's life on the Reservation help provide him with belief, faith and dreams? Did his reading of Shakespeare provide these things?) In addition, as what Shakespeare’s works have influenced him, John is rational, religious, and natural. He has experienced all emotions therefore he cherished a real happiness. Therefore he went mad after found out the fake happiness had formed the whole world maggoty with wholesale mind-manipulated ideologies. He claimed, "What you need," the Savage went on, "is something //with// tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here." And he wants “the right to be unhappy.” Such as what Agent Smith told Morpheus in the movie //The Matrix//: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. (Quotes from movie)

_However no one would like to wake up in the world state and John was too weak to pursue his dreams. In the end of the story, John was compelled to hang himself in the room: Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east. (BNW Ch.18)

_ Even after he died, John still could not decide a direction. That was the solution he worked out for this “brave new function” –no solution: the world was dying. His belief is destroyed. People reading his amazing story from headlines would never understand what Mr. Savage thought. They were too busy to think about him. The next day, alphas, betas, and epsilons would buy a new newspaper, continued their happy life with soma, until their bodies are thrown into the big chimneys, became a “”, and finally disappeared in the sky. And the controllers, who hide books forever in the locker, will be glad to rule his country of two billion zombies forever.

_(to be continued...)

5th Draft --An informal draft. ..
toc Believe In Your Belief On October 6th, 2010, Robert Edward was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the “development of in vitro fertilization", i.e., test tube baby research. The first tube baby was born in 1978 when this treatment of infertility was considered a significant ethical problem and a violation of the natural. Despite of controversies, the treatment became widespread in the world during the following years. In 2006, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology has announced that in the U.S. solely, the treatment “resulted in 41,343 births (54,656 infants), which was slightly more than 1% of total US births.” (Online source). Two days after Dr. Edward received the prize, Bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the award was "out of order." (Online source) The Nobel Committee was blasted by many religious groups, which have kept the natural “order” of the world for thousands of years. This was a debate between beliefs about technology and the nature of life. One side of the debate is the powerful young population who prefer enjoyment of material things. They evaluate the quality of life according to how wealthy one is, how many friends one has on facebook page, what is the brand of one’s clothing etc. Whereas another side of the debate is a small group of old conservative people who failed to follow the trend and stressed the importance of spiritual beliefs. A belief does not have to relate to religions; a belief could be a dream, a faith or even a love that gives out hope*.

Laboratories, tubes, and mass-production: all words coincidently fit in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In the new world named “World State”, a monopolistic religion called “Fordism”, which refers to technology worship, is generally accepted. Everyone –from intelligent Alphas to dull Epsilons –believes developed techniques bring them everything. In order to keep the stability of the society, the controllers let bio-techniques replace natural reproduction, therefore families are eliminated and recreational sex is popular while parenthood and monogamy are considered shameful. Love becomes the appendix of the society. The only thing they care is job. Although people’s social strata are predetermined, they are brainwashed to believe “everybody is happy now”. (BNW Ch.5) In addition, without hunger, poverty, or disease, the World State becomes a utopia. Isn’t it wonderful? No, it’s not. For the passive happiness gives them neither hopes nor futures.

therefore, they do not have long term goals, or. massively copied. Whenever one came about a new thought, he would be considered abnormal. Such as the comment on Bernard from Lenina:” ODD, ODD, odd…” (BNW Ch.6)

In the story, Lenina Crowne was a typical brainwashed people. Although she was an Alpha (the most intelligent caste in the World State), she did not realize her mental world was restrained narrowly in the way she was taught. She shares the same ideology with all others: feelies is her favorite entertainment, she believes a hotel must have at least “20 Obstacle Golf courts”, (BNW Ch.4) “The story about the alcohol having been put into the poor chap's blood-surrogate must be true” was the only reason she repeated when Bernard came about “odd” ideas… “A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.”(Bible: Proverbs 14:15) Lenina’s type of people resembles a person who buys a $599 iPhone only uses it to make calls, all of which could be done on a $9.9 bar phone easily. He gives up all abundant applications that could have made iPhone special and dominant. “All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.” However Leninas are fully convinced they are happy because they don’t need to dream anything*.

Bernard Marx experiences a big change through the story. In the beginning, he suffers a loneliness stemmed from his “odd” thoughts. He dreams “to be free to be happy in another way”. (BNW Ch.6) He tried to escape from the crowd and questioned his relationships, his job, and everything. In the first half of the story, Bernard stood out as a question mark of this quixotic world: he wanted love, wanted freedom, opposed soma… He insisted: "’I'd rather be myself… Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.’" (BNW Ch.6) His insistence motivates him to do something different –go to the reservation and be eager to learn about other cultures. As indicated by Linda, (a former World State resident who has lived in reservation for 18 years) no one has ever been to the reservation. When Lenina is terrified by other lives, Bernard showed great interest in everything he doesn’t know. Talking with John is his happiest time since the story starts as he finds hope. When he finally brought John to London later, Bernard got a great chance to revenge the society he was dissatisfied with –John was his sword to cut off the stubborn orders and rules. At the same time, however, Bernard received various personal benefits from John’s success –retribution to the Director who wanted to send him to Iceland, gain of public reputation, women, and money…

Consequently, he began to enjoy the aristocratic life and he is too lazy to pursue his original beliefs. To make no reasons for an individual to go for a dream –that is how the social system works. Mustapha Mond is one of the ten controllers in the World State. His belief was to keep “the World State’s Motto: community, identity, and stability” (BNW Ch.1). Therefore he designed every aspect of the world carefully in order to make sure everyone lives in the same way according to Fordism’s definition of happiness. He is the most knowledgeable person, and he knew psychology. People are afraid of competition, therefore he supports eugenics; people prefer escapism, therefore he provides unlimited “soma” people are ambitious; therefore he convinces everyone that they are happy and satisfied. Finally, when every need is fulfilled, people stop desiring. “They're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave.” This is what controllers want to see. They produce human beings like commercial products, feed them like feeding animals, and send people’s bodies to crematorium for "Phosphorus recovery." No families, no tombs, no hopes, life could not be more meaningless. This is why fordism picks up a capitol T as the symbol –T is the headless cross means no thoughts on beliefs. Mond believes he and his people are happy, however how would they know if no one has experienced unhappiness? Such as what Bertrand Russell argued: “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” (Russell, page 27). In the movie The Matrix, Agent Smith told Morpheus:

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. (Quotes from movie)

Therefore, from the primitive reservation, John was destined to come to the World State to wake people up. He was entirely unlike others when introduced into the story in the second half. John lived on the boarder of two cultures. His ideology was shaped when living with Indians, who inherited primitive traditions and religions. Moreover, after read Shakespeare’s works, John formed a strict moral standard which was totally different from those of people from World State. The tour becomes John’s nightmare. John is called “Mr. Savage” due to his background, but he found himself came into a world of real savages. These savages replace love with sexual activities, replace spiritual beliefs with entertainments, replace natural emotions with a chemical substance called soma, and replace freedom with the stability of society. Flowers and arts are “the price we have to pay for stability.” And people don’t know history neither record history, since everyone –in the past or in the future –is living the same life, like a machine that only exists to ensure the society goes well.

"What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here."

John has experienced fears, tears, jealousy, therefore cherished the feelings that others haven’t had. He wanted to share them, which, in his words: “I come to bring you freedom” (BNW Ch.15), as he believed all others were enslaved by the fake happiness. Therefore Mond commented: "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."(BNW Ch.17) But John forgot one thing: if he would not change solely because other’s suggestions, neither would others. To find a Cabin and to stay away from aliens may be a good choice, but he was too weak to be himself.

In the end of the story, John was compelled to hang himself in the room: Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east. (BNW Ch.18)

Even after he died, John still could not decide a direction. He lost hope. That was the solution he worked out for this “brave new function” –no solution: the world was dying. People reading his amazing story from headlines would never understand what Mr. Savage thought. They were too busy to think about him. The next day, alphas, betas, and epsilons would buy a new newspaper, continued their happy life with soma, until their bodies are thrown into the big chimneys, became a “”, and finally disappeared in the sky. And Mond, who hides his books forever in the locker, will be glad to rule his country of two billion zombies forever. In the story, Lenina represents a big population who follows the trend and never thinks independently, Bernard is the small groups that trade beliefs with enjoyments easily, Mond is the controller that intents to do well but practices in a wrong way, John is one of the very few people that sacrifice themselves to dreams. There is no space on this big world for a normal person to dream a little dream. Huxley’s Brave New World was considered as one of the most notable “anti-utopian” literatures. Together with another anti-utopian work –George Orwell’s 1984, Brave New World is often related to the reality. In 1984, people are monitored by the “big brother” (world’s controller) 24-7-365, "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away.” With the development of democracy, the predictions in 1984 may be no longer be a threat to the modern society. On the contrary, Huxley’s prophecies in Brave New World in brave new world have shown up in our life one by one: contraception measures, LSD, tube babies, accurate time management, and even 3D movies –a technology that is mostly used in action movies. This world is in danger, as Postman warned in his book Amusing Ourselves To Death: Marked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. (Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death. 5)

In 1984, the controller asked people to be happy, and therefore sadness was forbidden; in Brave New World, the controller asked people to be happy, and therefore sadness was forgotten. If the way people lived in 1984 is described as having their heads buried in the sands because they could not escape or breathe, then the way people lived in brave new world is like a frog in boiling water (footnote), because they do not even notice how they are dying. This is how materials affect lives: when people got tired of walking, they bought cars; when people got tired of cooking, they went to McDonald’s; when people got tired of reading, they watched TVs; when people got tired of thinking, they got addicted to trivial culture.

According to Oxford Definition of English, trivial means: “useless information or (knowledge of) matters of little importance.” Trivial culture separates people’s life into small pieces, therefore, more precise, more boring, and more busy. Everyone is complaining time goes by too fast, but none could specifically tell what took their time away. Trivial culture kills people’s patient and focus on their beliefs, such as Mont’s comment: “Evidently, that we can be independent of God.”The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.' But there aren't any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous.”

Life is like a sailing, one would easily get lost on the sea without a direction, which is a belief in reality. It gives out power and hope. When Columbus set sail from the west end of Eurasia, he had nothing but the belief that he would definitely get to Asia. And he did. As he noted in the diario of his first voyage to America: ”And the sea will grant each man new hope. . . = =

Test Tube Baby ==> Analyse of four characters ==> relationship with modern society

Believe In Your Belief

On October 6th, 2010, Robert Edward was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the “development of in vitro fertilization", i.e., test tube baby research. The first tube baby was born in 1978 when this treatment of infertility was considered a significant ethical problem and a violation of the natural. Despite of controversies, the treatment became widespread in the world during the following years. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology has announced that in the U.S. solely, the treatment resulted in 41,343 births (54,656 infants), which is slightly more than 1% of total US births in 2006. ([]). Two days after Dr. Edward received the prize, Bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the award was "out of order." The Nobel Committee was blasted by religious groups, which have kept their “order” of the world for thousands of years. This is a debate between technology and the nature of life, which means, to have a belief. Laboratories, tubes, and mass-production, all those key words coincide with Huxley’s Brave New World. In this new world of happiness, the controller let bio-technologies replace natural reproduction and eliminated families in order to keep the stability of the society. Besides, people were brain-washed to enjoy a world obsessed with massive technologies and to believe they were happy for no reasons. A monopolistic ideology was massively copied. Whenever one came about a new thought, he would be considered abnormal. Such as the comment for Bernard from Lenina:” ODD, ODD, odd…” Lenina was the representative of brain-washed people –although she was an Alpha (the most intelligent type in the world), she did not realize her metal world was restrained narrowly only in the way she was supposed to be, like a matrix that could only compute one formula. At the same time, Bernard suffered a loneliness stemmed from his “odd” thoughts about freedom. He tried to escape from the crowed and questioned the principle of sleep-teaching, which was his job. In the first half of the story, Bernard stood out as a question mark of this quixotic world: he wanted love, wanted freedom, opposed soma, had a belief to seek for his own life. He insisted: "’I'd rather be myself,’ he said. ‘Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.’" After he finally brought John into the real world, Bernard got a great chance to revenge the society he dissatisfied with –John was his sword to cut off the orders and rules. At the same time, however, Bernard received some individual benefits from John’s success –retribution to the Director who wanted to send him to Iceland, public reputation, women, and money… he got lost; he compromised to materialism and forgot his belief. Bernard’s change showed how a xxx fell. John, who was introduced into the story in the second half, was the one that finally unveiled the truth. He lived on the boarder of two cultures. His ideology was shaped when living with Indians, who inherited primitive xxx(ceremonies?) and religions. Moreover, with the influence from Shakespeare’s works, John set a clear moral standard which was totally different from those from people from brave new world. John has experienced fears, tears, jealousy, therefore cherished. He wanted to share them with other people, in his words, save them, give them freedom. Such as what Mond said: "you're claiming the right to be unhappy." But John forgot one thing: if he would not change solely because others advise him to do so, neither would others. To find a Cabin and stay away from reality may be a good choice, but he was too weak to be himself. Mustapha Mond is the controller. He is probably the only one that was awake in this brave new world. His belief was to keep community, identity, and stability; therefore he designed every aspect of the world carefully. Everyone lived in a same way according to Mond’s definition of happiness. He improved technologies and created a perfect world without poverty, hunger, or disease. In fact, his people were mentally poor, hungry, and sick, because the Controller did not give them belief. A people without belief are the same as animals or machines. Mond substituted all unhappiness by feelies, orpy porpy, centrifugal bumblepuppy, and soma. "What you need is a gramme of soma." But if one never experienced unhappiness, how could one understand the real happiness? In the end of the story, John was implied to hang himself in the room: Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east.

Even after he died, John still could not find his direction. People flew over the Hog’s Back to watch him would never understand what Mr. Savage thought. They would read the amazing story from headlines, then throw the newspaper away, continued their happy life with soma, until their bodies are thrown into the big chimneys and became a “marvelous switchback” that finally disappear in the sky. And Mond, who locks his books forever in the locker, will enjoy his country of two billion zombies forever and ever. In the story, Lenina represents the big population who follows the trend and never thinks about their lives, Bernard is the small groups that compromise easily, John is the very few people that sacrifice themselves to their own belief, Mond is the controller that intents to do well but failed. Everyone is lonely in this world. Huxley’s Brave New World was considered as one of the most notable “anti-utopian” literatures. Together with another anti-utopian work –Orwell’s 1984, Brave New World is often related to our real world. In 1984, people are monitored by the “big brother” (world’s controller) 24-7, "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away.” With the development of democracy, 1984 may be no more a threat. On the contrary, predictions in Brave New World in brave new world show up in our life one by one: contraception measures, LSD, tube babies, even 3D movies –which are mostly used in action movies. This world is in danger, as Postman warned in his book Amusing Ourselves To Death: Marked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. (Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death. 5)

If the way people lived in 1984 is described as buried in the sands because they could not breathe nor get out, then the way people lived in brave new world is the frog in boiling water (footnote), because they do not even understand how they die. When people got tired of walking, they bought cars; when people got tired of cooking, they found McDonald’s; when people got tired of reading books, they watched TVs; when people got tired of thinking, they got addicted to the trivial culture. In trivial culture, people are busy doing so many things everyday from when they wake up in the morning to the time they fall on their beds. Everyone is complaining time goes by so fast, but none could tell specifically what they did in the day. They live like flies that are always flying around but never get to a right place. Such as Mont’s comment: "But people never are alone now," said Mustapha Mond. "We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it."(Alone) That is the way lives got destroyed. Belief doesn’t have to relate to religions. A dream or a short-term goal that is encouraging could be the belief. When Columbus set sail from the west end of Eurasia, he had nothing but the belief that he would get to Asia if kept facing west. That is the power of belief.

3rd Draft --New Topic ╮(￣▽￣)╭
BELIEF toc

Robert Edward --2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine -->controversy {Belief about technology or Traditional Belief} -->Definition of the Group that are in debate. -->Power of belief -->Belief doesn't have to be religious

Four Characters from BNW -->Lenina: representative of the most. Busy, Happy, don't think, likes feelies, fit the world, controlled by machines

-->Bernard: a small group of people that have their ideas, dreams, angers in the beginning, but compromise in the end.

-->John: the kind of person that would never fit into the society. So he committed suicide.

-->Mustapha Mond: one of the 10 controllers; dictator; he believes his rules keep the stability and makes sure -the world functions well. But he is actually ruining the world.

Ending: EVA 人類補完計画, Jinrui Hokan Keikaku, mankind complementation/completion plan: all human physical life will end and the minds of all humans become united in a single soul.

media type="youtube" key="M345O6qvdY4?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death

--> Trivial Culture Etymology: early 15c., "of the trivium," from M.L. trivialis, from trivium "first three of the seven liberal arts," from L., lit. "place where three roads meet," from tri- "three" + via "road." The basic notion is of "that which may be found anywhere, commonplace, vulgar." The meaning "ordinary" (1580s) and "insignificant" (1590s) were in L. trivialis "commonplace, vulgar," originally "of or belonging to the crossroads."

--> Trivial Culture = no thinks!

Draft 1&2: Brave New World Research --Happiness:)
Citations: toc Brave New World Revisited Amusing Ourselves To Death The Journal of Christopher Columbus 1984



Miranda: O brave new world, that has such people in it. Shakespeare, //The Tempest//
 * Sources selected:**

Gonen, Jay Y.,//Roots Of Nazi Psychology : Hitler's Utopian Barbarism// Orwell, George, //1984// Postman, //Amusing Ourselves To Death// Huxley, //BNW revisited// Thoreau, Henry,//Walden// Movie: //Shawshank Redemption// Movie: // Postmen in the Mountains （那人·那山·那狗） // // Movie: Dead Poets Society // // Online Blog: luanke.jiaoyu.org // //Wikipedia: Taiwanese Identity//


 * Outline:**

Title: Find the right shoe for you

I. Introduction - Movie Postmen in the Mountains II. Body - A. The True Happiness of Bernard, Lenina, Monte and John B. How to define Happiness C. Happiness in real life D. Shall we look for happiness or wait for happiness III. Conclusion

Thoughts:


 * Massive production of everything==> hobbies, tastes of movies
 * Make everyone the same
 * Linda doesn't show a mother's love
 * John doesn't fit in the brand new world
 * Bernard doesn't want to go to Iceland
 * Iceland is filled with 'abnormal' persons
 * John doesn't call Linda Mother
 * John wanted to integrate into the Indian society when he was young;
 * But he wanted to change the 'Brand New World
 * Everyone in this story is a 'cup'; the whole story is a 'tea table' (￣﹏￣)...
 * The Human Instrumentality Project From Evangelion...
 * Neil Perry; Brooks was here; -->Suicidal
 * Eckart Loewe; Jong Tae-se; Lee Tenghui --> Self Identity
 * Beginning and Ending: Postmen in the mountains; Walden
 * Solders who fight for protecting their believes are happy although it's a dangerous job (Nazi Psychology)

Citations from sources:

I ask my mom, why people living in mountains don't go outside, mom said, we live in mountains just like putting feet in shoes, it's comfortable.
 * Movie: Postmen in the Mountains

（我问母亲，山里人为什么住在山里，母亲说，山里人住在山里，就像脚放在鞋子里一样，舒服. ）

Brooks:I have trouble sleepin' at night. I have bad dreams like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sort of nonsense any more. I don't like it here. I'm tired of being﻿ afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. (Then he committed suicide.)
 * Movie: Shawshank Redemption

Towards the last decade of the Japanese rule, the occupation force started a systematic campaign of Kōminka (皇民化 Transformation into Imperial subjects) to instill the "Japanese spirit" (大和魂 Yamato damashī) to assimilate ethnic Taiwanese into imperial subjects of the Japanese empire. This process was stopped when Japan was defeated at the end of World War II, ending efforts on the part of the Japanese forces, to integrate Taiwan, to be known as Okinawa and Hokkaidō, into the Japanese empire. During this last decade, Taiwanese were encouraged to adopt Japanese names. Many older generation Taiwanese have fond memories of the Japanese rule in comparison to the later KMT occupation. Many scholars have attributed this phenomenon to brain washing tactics pervasively used in schools run by the Japanese at the time, which foreshadowed Chinese brain washing tactics pervasively used in schools under KMT occupation. Even the former president Lee Tenghui of Taiwan has a Japanese name 岩里政男 (IWASATO Masao) and has stated on numerous occasions that he is, in fact, Japanese.
 * Wikipedia --Taiwanese Identity

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily toc concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."
 * Walden

>>research on language adaptation among Vietnamese adolescents in San Diego The data indicate a general tendency of convergence toward English corresponding with a divergence from Vietnamese. The change in language proficiency conforms to what is predicted by assimilationist models --English language proficiency increases over time with decreasing proficiency in one's mother tongue. The trend in language use also reveals a similar pattern, though not as clear cut. English monolingualism, representing only a small fraction of the group, increased only slightly, but fluent bilingualism decreased quite significantly, with more adolescents preferring to speak English as of T2( a graph).
 * Ethnicities --Children of immigrants in America

**1st Draft --Citations from BNW**

[[image:homework_gar.gif width="434" height="421" align="right"]]
(picked up randomly... I am not planning to put every citation below into the essay)

Chapter 2 -"… all wear green," said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which  is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta ."

Chapter 3 -He let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.

Chapter 4 -He (The liftman --an Epsilon-Minus Semi-Moron) smiled up with a kind of doggily expectant adoration into the faces of his passengers. Talking and laughing together, they stepped out into the light. The liftman looked after them.

Chapter 5 -"I suppose Epsilons don't really mind being Epsilons," she said aloud. -"Of course they don't. How can they? They don't know what it's like being anything else. We'd mind, of course. But then we've been differently conditioned. Besides, we start with a  different heredity." -"I'm glad I'm not an Epsilon," said Lenina, with conviction. -"And if you were an Epsilon," said Henry, "your conditioning would have made you no less thankful that you weren't a Beta or an Alpha."

-"What a marvellous switchback!" Lenina laughed delightedly. -But Henry's tone was almost, for a moment, melancholy. "Do you know what that switchback was?" he said. "It was some human being finally and definitely disappearing. Going up in a squirt of hot gas. It would be curious to know who it was–a man or a woman, an Alpha or an Epsilon. …" He sighed. Then, in a resolutely cheerful voice, "Anyhow," he concluded, "there's one thing we can be certain of; whoever he may have been, he was happy when he was alive. Everybody's happy now."

-"Yes, I thought it was wonderful," he lied and looked away; the sight of her transfigured face was at once an accusation and an ironical reminder of his own separateness. He was as miserably isolated now as he had been when the service began–more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness, his dead satiety. Separate and unatoned, while the others were being fused into the Greater Being; alone even in Morgana's embrace–much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly himself than he had ever been in his life before. He had emerged from that crimson twilight into the common electric glare with a self-consciousness intensified to the pitch of agony. He was utterly miserable, and perhaps (her shining eyes accused him), perhaps it was his own fault. "Quite wonderful," he repeated; but the only thing he could think of was Morgana's eyebrow.

Chapter 6 -ODD, ODD, //odd//, was Lenina's verdict on Bernard Marx.

-"I want to look at the sea in peace," he said. "One can't even look with that beastly noise going on." -"But it's lovely. And I don't want to look." -"But I do," he insisted. "It makes me feel as though …" he hesitated, searching for words with which to express himself, "as though I were more //me//, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. Doesn't it make  you feel like that, Lenina?"

Chapter 7 -"But how can they live like this?" she broke out in a voice of indignant incredulity. (It wasn't possible.) -Bernard shrugged his shoulders philosophically. "Anyhow," he said, "they've been doing it for the last five or six thousand years. So I suppose they must be used to it by now."

- "Is it (Abortion Centre) still down in Chelsea, by the way?" she (Linda) asked. Lenina nodded. "And still floodlighted on Tuesdays and Fridays?" Lenina nodded again. "That lovely pink glass tower!" Poor Linda lifted her face and with closed eyes ecstatically contemplated the bright remembered image. " And the river at night," she whispered. Great tears oozed slowly out from behind her tight-shut eyelids. "And flying back in the evening from Stoke Poges. And then a hot bath and vibro-vacuum massage …"

Chapter 8 -"But how do you make chemicals, Linda? Where do they come from?" -"Well, I don't know. You get them out of bottles. And when the bottles are empty, you send up to the Chemical Store for more. It's the Chemical Store people who make them, I suppose. Or  else they send to the factory for them. I don't know. I never did any chemistry. My job was always  with the embryos." It was the same with everything else he asked about. Linda never seemed to know.

-"Alone, always alone," the young man was saying. -The words awoke a plaintive echo in Bernard's mind. Alone, alone … "So am I," he said, on a gush of confidingness. "Terribly alone." -"Are you?" John looked surprised. "I thought that in the Other Place … I mean, Linda always said that nobody was ever alone there." -Bernard blushed uncomfortably. "You see," he said, mumbling and with averted eyes, "I'm rather different from most people, I suppose. If one happens to be decanted different …" -"Yes, that's just it." The young man nodded. "If one's different, one's bound to be lonely. They're beastly to one.

Chapter 11 -And Linda, for her part, had no desire to see them. The return to civilization was for her the return to //soma//, was the possibility of lying in bed and taking holiday after holiday, without ever having to come back to a headache or a fit of vomiting, without ever being made to feel as you always felt after //peyotl//, as though you'd done something so shamefully anti-social that you could never hold up your head again. //Soma// played none of these unpleasant tricks.

- Thenceforward she remained in her little room on the thirty-seventh floor of Bernard's apartment house, in bed, with the radio and television always on, and the patchouli tap just dripping, and the //soma// tablets within reach of her hand–there she remained; and yet wasn't there at all, was all the time away, infinitely far away, on holiday; on holiday in some other world, where the music of the radio was a labyrinth of sonorous colours, a sliding, palpitating labyrinth, that led (by what beautifully inevitable windings) to a bright centre of absolute conviction; where the dancing images of the television box were the performers in  some indescribably delicious all-singing feely; where the dripping patchouli was more than scent–was the sun, was a million saxophones, was Popé making love, only much more so, incomparably more, and without end.

-"Why?" The Provost turned towards him a still broadly grinning face. "//Why?// But because it's so extraordinarily funny."

Chapter 12 -"What fun it would be," he thought, "if one didn't have to think about happiness!"

Chapter 15 -"But do you like being slaves?" the Savage was saying as they entered the Hospital. His face was flushed, his eyes bright with ardour and indignation. "Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking," he added, exasperated by their bestial stupidity into throwing insults at those he had come to  save. The insults bounced off their carapace of thick stupidity; they stared at him with a blank expression of dull and sullen resentment in their eyes. "Yes, puking!" he fairly shouted. Grief and remorse, compassion and duty–all were forgotten now and, as it were, absorbed into an intense overpowering hatred of these less than human monsters. "Don't you want to be free and men? Don't you even understand what manhood and freedom are?" Rage was making him fluent; the words came easily, in a rush. "Don't you?" he repeated, but got no answer to his question. "Very well then," he went on grimly. "I'll teach you; I'll //make// you be free whether you want to or not." And pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the Hospital, he began to throw the little pill-boxes of //soma// tablets in handfuls out into the area.

Chapter 16 "Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel–and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want,  and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid  of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers;  they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically  can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's //soma//. Which you go  and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. //Liberty!//" He laughed. "Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand //Othello!// My good boy!"

-"It's an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron work–go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socialized–but only on  condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices,  for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices; they're the line of least resistance. His conditioning  has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself; he's foredoomed. Even after decanting,  he's still inside a bottle–an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course," the Controller meditatively continued, "goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space.  You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. It's obvious theoretically. But  it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing."

-"Awful? //They// don't find it so. On the contrary, they like it. It's light, it's childishly simple. No strain on the mind or the muscles. Seven and a half hours of mild, unexhausting labour, and then the //soma// ration and  games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies. What more can they ask for? True," he added, "they might  ask for shorter hours. And of course we could give them shorter hours. Technically, it would be perfectly simple  to reduce all lower-caste working hours to three or four a day. But would they be any the happier for that?  No, they wouldn't. The experiment was tried, more than a century and a half ago. The whole of Ireland was  put on to the four-hour day. What was the result? Unrest and a large increase in the consumption of //soma//;  that was all. Those three and a half hours of extra leisure were so far from being a source of happiness, that  people felt constrained to take a holiday from them. The Inventions Office is stuffed with plans for labour-saving processes. Thousands of them." Mustapha Mond made a lavish gesture. "And why don't we put them into execution? For the sake of the labourers; it would be sheer cruelty to afflict them with excessive leisure. It's the same with agriculture. We could synthesize every morsel of food, if we wanted to. But we don't. We prefer to keep a third of the population on the land. For their own sakes–because it takes //longer// to get food out of the land than out of a factory. Besides, we have our stability to think of. We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability. That's another reason why we're so chary of applying new inventions. Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even science."

-"Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he'd understand that his punishment is really a reward. He's being sent to an island. That's to say, he's being sent to a place where he'll meet the most interesting set of men and  women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously  individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren't satisfied with orthodoxy, who've got independent  ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who's any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson."

-The Controller smiled. "That's how I paid. By choosing to serve happiness. Other people's–not mine. It's lucky," he added, after a pause, "that there are such a lot of islands in the world. I don't know what we  should do without them. Put you all in the lethal chamber, I suppose. By the way, Mr. Watson, would you  like a tropical climate? The Marquesas, for example; or Samoa? Or something rather more bracing?"

Chapter 17 -"'We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God's property. Is it not our  happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we //are// our own?  It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything,  as they suppose, their own way–to depend on no one–to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without  the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to  the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for  man–that it is an unnatural state–will do for a while, but will not carry us on safely to the end …'"

-Mustapha Mond shut the book and leaned back in his chair. "One of the numerous things in heaven and earth that these philosophers didn't dream about was this" (he waved his hand), "us, the modern world.  'You can only be independent of God while you've got youth and prosperity; independence won't take you  safely to the end.' Well, we've now got youth and prosperity right up to the end. What follows? Evidently,  that we can be independent of God. 'The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.' But there  aren't any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for  a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we  go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies  continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have //soma//? of something immovable, when there is  the social order?"

-"You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things  because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad  reasons–that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to. toc -"But people never are alone now," said Mustapha Mond. "We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it."

-"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

Chapter 18

Then suddenly somebody started singing "Orgy-porgy" and, in a moment, they had all caught up the refrain and, singing, had begun to dance. Orgy-porgy, round and round and round, beating one another in six-eight time. Orgy-porgy …